6.2 Ashran Preview

The Ashran Excavation Area is an underground area with new competitive events. Your goal is to collect Apexis Marks of Redemption by killing Arakkoa ghosts. Whoever turns in 50 marks first wins.

Faction bosses and events do not rewards Conquests Points in 6.2, but there are new ways to get Conquest Points in Ashran.

Blizzard

In Patch 6.2, Warlords of Draenor’s PvP zone is getting some new quests and an eerie new area to explore. Here’s a rundown of what you’ll encounter on the glorious battlefield between Warspear and Stormshield.Warning: Here be spoilers!New Quests Faction bosses and events will no longer reward Conquest points after Patch 6.2, but will continue to reward Honor points and strongboxes. To fill your pockets with lots of Conquest points going forward, you’ll want to pick up and complete these new quests:

– A weekly quest to rack up 200 honor kills for a reward of 200 Conquest points.

– A repeatable quest that unlocks after Ashran Dominance is completed. Rewards 500 Conquest points when you kill the enemy faction boss and win five events.

This is new. What could be going on in here?Meanwhile, Belloc Brightblade and Harrison Jones have followed the siren-like call of a new artifact being unearthed in Ashran. They each offer a quest leading you to fight your way into a new section of the zone. . . . A New Area The Ashran Excavation has been revealed, and its unearthly inhabitants are none too pleased about the presence of you and other visitors.Once you enter the Ashran Excavation, you’ll find yourself inside a very large underground area. Similar to other parts of Ashran, a competitive event is randomly triggered in the area. When the event begins, your goal is to collect by taking down the Arakkoa ghosts that haunt the depths.Later on, you can tell all the ghost stories you want.Somewhere in this underground labyrinth, you’ll find a ghost named —one of the few entities here who doesn’t want to kill you on sight. He’s a collector of Marks of Redemption, and he’s waiting to award victory over the Ashran Excavation to whichever faction turns in 50 Marks first.Rukmaz doesn’t like being called “the friendly ghost”.There’s a lot going on in Ashran, and if you haven’t fully explored Draenor’s sprawling PvP zone yet, you might want to check out Wowhead’s Ashran Reputations Guide and their Comprehensive Ashran Guide by HelloKitty. Enemy players are in there right now, just waiting for you to kill them. Want to get a first look at the next patch for yourself? Join us on the Patch 6.2 Public Test Realm, and share your thoughts and opinions on everything coming to World of Warcraft in our PTR General Discussion forum. If you find a bug while testing, let us know about it in our PTR Bug Report forum.

Patch 6.2 Shadow Priest Feedback

Celestalon

Thanks for the candid and constructive post. We read tons of feedback, and these kinds of posts, where the community is working together to provide constructive points, are exactly the kinds we like to read and discuss internally. So much so that we thought it was worth offering a reply based on some of the thoughts and discussions we've had since reading it.

First, let's talk about talents. In general, most of these concerns are ones which we can work to improve through number tweaks. As a caveat, I'd remind that it's not fair to look at talents purely from a raiding and min/maxing point of view (for example, is about as dominant in PvP as is in Raiding). But, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to improve things in the raiding context.

Level 45 talents are a more skewed than we'd like, but all of the talents do see some play. vs is largely a question of whether you want more mobility. Highly skilled players in top raid guilds tend to min/max their movement better, and so typically find the raw DPS of Insanity more valuable. We're hoping that sees a bit more play, in part due to the Legendary Ring, and in cases where cooldowns are valuable. Overall, a row that could certainly be more balanced, which we plan to place greater emphasis on in the future.

Level 60 talents are similar; is dominant amongst top raiders, but isn't completely exclusive. and both do see some play. may go up a bit for the same reasons as . Additionally, Twist of Fate requires some gaming of its proc to get the maximum theoretical value out of, leading to the row being more balanced in general for the average player. That said, is likely the ideal one to be dominant, since it's a good talent for both experienced and inexperienced players.

has ended up being somewhat ironically named, because it's actually rather unclear how it's supposed to work. In fact, when we designed it, the DoT-weaving style that has emerged was never intended. It's a good example of how players can use tools we give you in unexpected ways, and eek more performance than we expect out of something. Late in beta, it became clear that it wasn't just a crazy idea, and was actually a significant performance boost to do. We opted to just let it go at that time, and see what happened with it. Unfortunately, it ended up overly dominant, without a clear/elegant solution to change it. In 6.1, we opted to just buff the other two talents on the row up to be competitive with the unintentionally overpowered . That leaves CoP in the unfortunate situation of being the best, if you know the unintuitive trick to it, which is a poor situation for players who are new or not ‘in-the-know'. is also probably a little undertuned still; it's just quite niche right now.

Next, the Shadow class trinket (). It is, indeed, very punishing to use if there is a target swap. The intention is that it's a tradeoff to use, but that in a good situation, it's very strong, and I think the numbers reflect that (perhaps too much, based on PTR testing, but we're still evaluating that). In general, the class trinkets are more situational effects. Being on trinkets, they're more optional and swappable, than something like a set bonus is (which has few alternatives). There are exceptions on both sides of that, of course, but it's a general case. Finally, there is one improvement coming that will help; it'll reach max stacks twice as fast in the next PTR build.

Many other classes have the option to swap specs for any given fight, to switch to a spec more suited to that fight. Having only a single spec, s have no such option. Instead, we tried to position Mastery as an option that they could tailor their gear toward or away from based on the fight. I think it's fair to say that that hasn't worked out as well as we'd hoped, but hasn't been a failure. I think one of the extenuating circumstances here is that raid fights this expansion have had more multi-target focus than single-target, leading Mastery to be quite niche indeed.

In terms of AoE, Shadow is intended to fill the role of a multi-DoTter. Different classes are different, and we don't want to make them more homogenous by giving them strong burst AoE options like certain specs of s or s. That said, Shadow should excel at the situations they're suited to, more. If the fight calls for sustained damage on 3 spread out targets, that's a case that Shadow should be favored on, and I'm not sure if they do enough right now, to make up for the more common case of clumped/burst/many-target AoE. It's something we're looking at improving in the future.

Each raid tier, every spec gets new set bonuses. Sometimes their effects are more passive, sometimes more active. We try to make things exciting and feel rewarding. With any case like this, where there are so many bonuses, and they have to try to fulfill so many goals simultaneously, there's bound to be some varying degree of success at that. And that's generally OK; it adds texture to the game when how much you interact with your set bonuses varies between tiers. Your criticisms are totally valid, and we'll take the feedback into account when designing future set bonuses, for sure.

Finally, I'd like to talk a bit more about Shadow in general; the big picture, not so much about these specific concerns. We've been retrospective lately about where Shadow has come, and how much it truly fulfills its intended fantasy, gameplay style, role, etc. Shadow Priests should be the masters of the shadows cast by the light from the Holy Priests. In terms of lore and fantasy, they should focus on the powers of the Void. However, they're still s; they know that what they're dabbling with is dangerous, and have to try to go as far as they can without going *too* far. Pain, , … These are the tools they use on their enemies, and even a bit on themselves. For the future, we're looking at ways that we can adjust their gameplay to feel more viscerally “Shadow Priest”. We think some things have worked well (like their DoTs), and other things have worked not so well (like ). It's too early to announce anything specific at this point, but we can tell you that there are very significant changes coming to Shadow in a future patch, that we hope will better capture the fantasy, while providing unique gameplay. We're reading all of your feedback, and taking it into account when making these changes.

Again, thanks for the constructive feedback, and we look forward to more in the future.

Comentario de necrotomma

Comentario de Gressie

must get my warlords of draenor title nemesis b4 6.2 no more premades giggidy this new ashran seems fun but will be long ass queues

Comentario de Cielos

on 2015-06-01T12:18:41-05:00

So... does this mean they took away the conquest from side events? Are these quests the only way to get conquest?

Comentario de Effectrix

on 2015-06-01T12:20:18-05:00

So does this mean that with Continue the Domination you can conquest cap just from doing Ashran, ie is the quest infinitely repeatable?

Comentario de tmptfate

on 2015-06-01T12:47:31-05:00

So... does this mean they took away the conquest from side events? Are these quests the only way to get conquest?

Correct. Events by themselves no longer award 100 each when you win.

Comentario de Palewind

on 2015-06-01T13:15:41-05:00

I love these changes. Hopefully, it will keep people playing the game and seeking out active conflict for the sake of PVP. I wish they would have found a way to include RoC in the quest, though ... because no one will ever want to do it now. And as a druid, I like my flight form books!

Comentario de Shadowloot

on 2015-06-01T13:33:13-05:00

Oh boy, they still don't get it that Ashran sucks.

Comentario de heixia

on 2015-06-01T13:37:42-05:00

The new Ashran area looks alot like Dalarans underbelly. EDIT: Woah! I've seen people and heard them talk about the PTR but I thought that was only for certain people! Can random players of WoW actually try out the new patch? If so I'm really happy you mentioned it in this news preview! :D

Comentario de Knetog

on 2015-06-01T14:16:54-05:00

Spriest have always been put aside and their poor skills/talent are bad and nothing changes, still down the ranks compared to others in raid. Starting a fight with 0 orbs is a huge dps lost and the balance they try to do are just not working. In this current raid, I would do really good when there's more than 1 target in the fight but whenever there's only 1 boss, you are forced to play CoP to be competitive in dps with other class. In the end, learn the annoying rotation that Dot-Weaving is and deal with it..... or go heal.

Comentario de iettlopp

on 2015-06-01T17:22:37-05:00

instead of making a new zone in ashran the could make a new bg or arena... just saying

Comentario de Ametrine

on 2015-06-01T18:53:25-05:00

Finally, some gnome love - awesome mechano mount...

I forgot how you get the token to unlock it, though. I hope it's accountwide, since I have multiple gnomes...

Comentario de LordBarbarian

on 2015-06-01T19:31:35-05:00

... I hope it's accountwide, since I have multiple gnomes...

all mounts are accountwide, but some mounts have faction/profession restrictions ;)

Comentario de peon1

on 2015-06-01T21:13:56-05:00

... I hope it's accountwide, since I have multiple gnomes...

all mounts are accountwide, but some mounts have faction/profession restrictions ;)

Vicious mounts are NOT account-wide, though you can transfer the mount to another character once the saddle is turned in. Saddle is BOP.

Thanks Perc, it's great to know that option's out there! I'll try it out soon. :D

Actually just wondering, when is patch 6.2 actually going live?

Comentario de Interest

on 2015-06-01T23:48:14-05:00

instead of making a new zone in ashran the could make a new bg or arena... just saying

I would support this if they actually extended where one could get Broken Bones...

Comentario de cucmw5

on 2015-06-02T00:48:06-05:00

I like how Celestation didn't say anything about some of the glaring Priest bugs that have been around since Warlords launch.

Most notably the 50-50 disconnect chance with using Mind Control, and the fact that Shadowform doesn't actually grant any bonus armor like its tooltip says it does.

Comentario de Booyachaka

on 2015-06-02T02:54:56-05:00

I'm sad to see the blue post like these.

it show me that game designer dont understand many issues in game today, for example: "In terms of AoE, Shadow is intended to fill the role of a multi-DoTter. Different classes are different, and we don't want to make them more homogenous by giving them strong burst AoE options like certain specs of Mages or Warlocks. That said, Shadow should excel at the situations they're suited to, more. If the fight calls for sustained damage on 3 spread out targets, that's a case that Shadow should be favored on, and I'm not sure if they do enough right now, to make up for the more common case of clumped/burst/many-target AoE. It's something we're looking at improving in the future."

can someone explain me how spriest is competative on "multi-dotting" with fire mages and warlocks? do you know how many GCD we have to spend on multidot vs mages and warlocks? does Mr. game designer heard about "Cataclysm" and "Inferno blast and combution"?

/damn

Comentario de Effectrix

on 2015-06-02T08:57:27-05:00

I like how Celestation didn't say anything about some of the glaring Priest bugs that have been around since Warlords launch.

Most notably the 50-50 disconnect chance with using Mind Control, and the fact that Shadowform doesn't actually grant any bonus armor like its tooltip says it does.

Also Cascade which is the best talent in the tier for all 3 specs is bugged for both healing and shadow (though imo it's less of an issue for shadow since it still deals most of its damage).

Comentario de rinkworks

on 2015-06-02T10:16:55-05:00

I'm sad to see the blue post like these.

it show me that game designer dont understand many issues in game today, for example: "In terms of AoE, Shadow is intended to fill the role of a multi-DoTter. Different classes are different, and we don't want to make them more homogenous by giving them strong burst AoE options like certain specs of Mages or Warlocks. That said, Shadow should excel at the situations they're suited to, more. If the fight calls for sustained damage on 3 spread out targets, that's a case that Shadow should be favored on, and I'm not sure if they do enough right now, to make up for the more common case of clumped/burst/many-target AoE. It's something we're looking at improving in the future."

can someone explain me how spriest is competative on "multi-dotting" with fire mages and warlocks? do you know how many GCD we have to spend on multidot vs mages and warlocks? does Mr. game designer heard about "Cataclysm" and "Inferno blast and combution"?

/damn

GCDs spent is not the only metric; there is also the total damage done per GCD. Since the damage is delayed, DoTs typically do more damage to a single target than other instant casts. If you get a priest spending 3 GCDs to dot up 3 mobs, while a mage spends 3 GCDs on 3 instants -- each instant only hitting 1 mob, because the mobs are spread out -- then the priest will have the higher DPS.